Luis Antonio Robles Suárez

Who was Luis Antonio Robles Suárez?

Luis Antonio Robles Suárez also known as "El Negro Robles", was a Colombian lawyer and politician. He was the first Afro-Colombian to hold a cabinet-level ministry in Colombia serving as Secretary of the Treasury and Public Credit during the administration of President Aquileo Parra Gómez, as well as being the first Afro-Colombian Congressperson as Member of the Chamber of Representatives for Magdalena, and the first Afro-Colombian Governor of a Department, as the 16th President of the Sovereign State of Magdalena. He graduated a lawyer from Our Lady of the Rosary University in 1872, thus also becoming the first Afro-Colombian to ever serve as a lawyer in Colombia.